


Cat and Mouse

by gardnerhill



Series: A Fiend in Feline Form [6]
Category: Basil of Baker Street - All Media Types, Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, The Great Mouse Detective (1986)
Genre: Community: watsons_woes, M/M, Prompt Fic, Watson's Woes July Writing Prompts 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-30
Updated: 2015-07-30
Packaged: 2018-04-12 00:56:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4459160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Continent – it’s not just for fleeing human consulting detectives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cat and Mouse

**Author's Note:**

> For the 2015 July Watson's Woes Promptfest prompt #29, Picture prompt: Snow Wolf:
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> This story is part of my series [**A Fiend in Feline Form**](http://archiveofourown.org/series/111554), and follows immediately after my Watson's Woes Prompt story [**A Practical Cat**](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4253481).

Basil and I escaped England with our lives, but it was a narrow scratch – the one-eyed tomcat who just missed us at Dover hissed and hackled from the dock as the boat pulled away, furious. But under his clawed paws were both our bags, as we’d let go of them to leap onto the moving vessel.

“Oy! Moggie!” I shouted at the ginger monster. I whisked my tail forward so that he could see the stump at the end, to scare the mis-littered creature.

But he only grinned at me. “E’en catkillers be killed!” he yowled with the dockside cant of a ship’s-cat. “Catkillers be killed, Dawson!”

A chill ran up my scarred back. Macavity had hired a fellow who didn’t give a whisker-twitch for the fact that I’d slain the best mouser in London.

“Do convey my robust good health to Mr. Macavity, Ginger Tim!” Basil called across the water. Only I saw that he was hackled to his very tail-hairs, enraged and afraid.

It was a satisfaction to see those notched ears flatten against Ginger Tim’s skull for a moment. He’d have to tell his boss that he’d failed his commission – and he’d get more than a “Bad kitty!” for this.

We left the old villain tearing open and scattering our meager luggage in his rage. I mournfully watched my handsome (and costly) paisley waistcoat sail into the greasy dock-water as we pulled further away from England. “I don’t dare tell Mr. Mousekowitz what happened to that – he’ll have a fit at a cat tearing up his best tailoring.”

Basil patted my shoulder, his grim gaze never leaving the sight. “He’ll be very relieved you weren’t in it at the time, my dear fellow.”

###

Over the next few days we travelled south and east from France, through Belgium and into Germany. In all that time I could scarcely coax three words from my companion, nor compel him to take more than a few hours’ sleep at a stretch. “I must hear from Gervaise, Dawson,” he’d say irritably, brushing aside all overtures of affection I attempted with him.

At Geneva we stayed at a charming subterranean hotel near a picturesque human chalet, maintained by a mole named Friedrich. As a good number of his customers were holiday-goers from all over Britain and Europe, his command of languages was splendid if heavily accented both for German and in the snuffly way of mole-language.

Basil had just roused from a short uneasy doze to join me at the dinner table – Friedrich maintained a splendid array of cheeses for his guests – when our good host bustled in, beaming and squinting. “Herr Basil, your telegram awaited is here.”

Basil leapt up, snatched the missive from Friedrich’s paw, tore it open, read it, and flung it on the table with a word I will not repeat.

I waved the distressed Friedrich back to the cellar. Taking up the crushed telegram myself, I read the lines – ALL OTHERS CAUGHT STOP BUT CAT CAME BACK FULL STOP G – and bit back a foul curse myself.

“Macavity has given them all the slip,” Basil said bitterly, flinging his arms as if announcing the obvious. “Oh, they have all the others in custody, well done them! The most dangerous one is free, and without a thing to lose now that his syndicate has been broken. What has he left, but vengeance?” He exhaled hard, and looked at me once.

I folded my arms and glared at him – swishing my tail to show _him_ the Catkiller’s stump. He was not sending me away like some frightened client to be protected.

I did not imagine the relieved slump of his shoulders. “We must leave here tomorrow, David,” he said, and his voice was weary, just weary. “We will be dangerous to _unser guter Friedrich_ if we stay longer.”

I rose and went to him. “Tomorrow,” I said. Then I took his paw and led him back to our room and made love to him until he fell asleep in my embrace.

###

Macavity was a Londoner who liked his creature comforts, and knew Basil was the same. Therefore we left inhabited places and civilised milieus, heading up into the mountains, still deep in snow despite it being early May. We dined like wild mice, on nuts and mushrooms, and bivouacked in unfinished holes or under tufts of dry grass. We meandered more than anything, for Basil was almost blithe in his assumption that Macavity would find us no matter how we tried to disguise our travel from now on.

“He will have a few – a very few – lieutenants still,” Basil warned me one evening. “I have the list from Gervaise and his gang is rounded up, save one or two on whom I had not yet been able to put a face.” He playfully ran his fingers along one of the bare claw-scars on my back till I giggled in an unbecoming fashion. “You have taken the worst of his confederates down, Doctor, so I may need your help with the others.”

The next day was lovely at the outset. The sky was a bright, perfect blue, dotted with clouds like newly-washed sheep; the snow underfoot was slushy but easily traversed with the snowshoes we both wore now; the weather as cool and crisp as the best apple. We made good time up Grindlewald.

Afternoon brought fog and icy cold, closing in, and the scattered trees had given way to white snow and grey granite and more white-grey snow and more white-grey granite. I shivered in the bulky coat I had gotten in Geneva. It was time we found a place to stay, to eat the acorns we’d brought (I tried not to think longingly of Friedrich’s Swiss cheeses) and to sleep.

I put my hand on Basil’s elbow to ask him.

And that was when the grey-white granite boulder ahead of us rose up and grinned. A grey-and-white wolf, who’d been lying in wait. “ _Guten tag, meine Herren.”_


End file.
